Hi Readers! This wisdom for pre-school parents comes to us from Jen Singer, who is NOT just a personal friend, NOT just the blogger behind mommasaid.net, NOT just the gal who penned, You’re A Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either), but is ALSO the author of the brand-new Stop Second Guessing Yourself –The Preschool Years. That book inspired this post: FLASHCARDS vs FUN by Jen Singer Wait a minute: Are those flashcards in that mom’s hands? At a baseball game? Yes. Yes, they are. She’s holding them up to test her preschooler on her letters and…
Author: lskenazy
Dear Readers — Sometimes, one person standing up for sanity can make a difference. Here’s a cool lady: Before retirement, I was a volunteer coordinator. My job was to find volunteers for all non-profit and government agencies in the county. We had a PenPal program which entailed matching about 35 senior citizens with an equal number of 5th grade students in a specific class. We worked with the same teacher for years. Letter-writing was one of the skills children were to learn, and our only personal contact was a school party at the end of the year, where the kids…
Hi Folks — This just in from a town outside of Georgia. (That’s the American Georgia, for all our international readers!) A “Webelo Scout” is a youngster on the cusp between Cub and Boy Scout. My son is Webelo scout and earned his whittling chit last year. This year I volunteered at the district day camp and led the Bear den. When it came time for the boys to earn their whittling chit, the instructor showed them all the proper ways to handle the knife and then — he handed them each a potato peeler! It was pathetic. So…
Hi Readers! Here’s a little note I got that I thought you might like, too. Dear Free-Range Kids: As the pseudo-aunt of a 2.5 year old nephew and 4 day (yes, DAY!) old niece, and as someone who wants children of her own, it is so refreshing to hear your point of view. My sister and I have arguments about her toddler’s safety : Do we REALLY need to religiously apply sunblock on him for the twenty minutes he’s going to spend in the sun on the deck? Do we really have to use bug repellent on the off chance…
Hi Readers — Here’s a round-up of Providence, Rhode Island-area schools that are making their parent volunteers get background checks, sent in by a gal named Rema. I know a lot of folks will say, “This makes sense! Can’t hurt — can only help!” but let’s consider whether that’s true. *First of all, if there are any studies that show kids are getting molested right and left by parents who volunteer at recess duty or on field trips, I haven’t seen them. It seems kind of hard to molest a kid in the middle of a trip to the petting…
Hi Readers — Tomorrow morn will bring a posting of gravitas and import. Or at least, something relevant to Free-Range Kids. But tonight (it’s bedtime here in New York), here’s a video that I’ll be replaying in my mind tomorrow morning: A woman and her son get ready for school in FIVE MINUTES! (And I love how she makes lunch!) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_DJpYo0l28&feature=related]
I sure did. Ridiculous recalls: http://bit.ly/lBmfc
So you think you know how to swing, kid? Sure, sure — everyone thinks they do: “You get on, you swing.” Yeah. And brain surgery is, “You open the top, you put in the marbles.” Listen, it’s not that simple. If it was, everyone would be doing it! Luckily for you, The National Program for Playground Safety has come up with some very helpful playground tips, including, “Always sit in the swing; don’t stand or kneel. Hold on tightly with both hands. Stop the swing completely before getting off.” Got that? HOLD ON TIGHTLY WITH BOTH HANDS! That’s something…
Hi Readers — Above is the question a Walmart employee in Arizona asked himself when some parents brought in a camera memory stick to be processed. Seven or eight of 144 photos showed the family’s three girls frolicking in the bath. Kodak Moment? Or kiddie porn? We know what the employee decided — and we know what the D.A. decided — because the girls, ages 5, 4 and 1 at the time, were taken away from the parents. For how long? A month. The parents weren’t even allowed to SEE their girls for several days. (Here’s the story.)…
Hi Readers! Here’s a little piece from MSNBC some of you sent in (thank you!), about kids and slides. Turns out when mom slides down with Junior on her lap to make him safer…she doesn’t. That’s what Dr. John Gaffney, a pediatric orthopedist and professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, discovered, to his surprise: After treating a spate of broken shinbones in toddlers who’d been riding on slides, Dr. John Gaffney decided to look for the cause. Gaffney, a pediatric orthopedist at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., and a clinical professor at State University…